Good Times
by The Wilky Bar Kid
Summary: In the first few days of the Belkan War the pilots of the Belkan Air Force are enjoying their "Good Times" as they dominate the skies over Ustio. But that will soon change...


**13 Miles West of Fenling**  
**Eastern Ustio  
1995**

"There they are," crackled the voice over the radio of Captain Hessen flying the lead MiG-29. "Straight ahead. Committing!"

"I see them," replied Gorndyke. "Following you in."

Gorndyke switched his weapon panel to ARM and selected the air-to-ground rockets hanging underneath his wings on the outermost pylons. On the Heads-Up Display or HUD a round circle appeared. This was effectively the crosshairs for aiming the rocket pods clutched underneath the MiG-29's wings.

Hessen's aircraft rolled right and began to descend. Gorndyke followed him through the manoeuvre as both aircraft turned their noses on the column of vehicles trundling up a desolate road through Ustio countryside. There were nine vehicles in total. At the front was a single M60 tank, no doubt put there to provide protection for the softer non-armoured vehicles following behind it. Five were large trucks crammed full of tired and demoralized troops. Dotted between them were three small jeeps. They appeared to have no protection against air attack.

"I will hit the tank to the centre of the column," said Hessen to Gorndyke. "You take the rear vehicles."

"Acknowledged," replied Gorndyke.

Gorndyke watched as Hessen's MIG-29 appeared to slowly pull away as the lead pilot reduced the steepness of his attack so as to target the lead vehicles. As they passed through nine thousand feet Gorndyke could see the vehicles in his targeting circle but he was too high to fire. Air speed was increasing as they dived which was a good thing because it meant he could pull away quicker if the enemy troops return fire. The upper area of the circle was just passing over the last vehicle, a jeep, and so Gorndyke pulled back on the control stick slightly to raise the circle over the middle of the convoy. As he mentally prepared himself for the attack he pictured hitting the last five vehicles. The rockets were to land in a line heading back towards the end of the convoy. With the airspeed increasing the altitude was rapidly decreasing. Four thousand feet passed and before long the needle was encroaching on three thousand. One and a half thousand feet and he would be cleared to fire.

Gorndyke's mouth began to dry. His heartbeat quickened. This was his first mission of the war and this was the first time he was going to kill someone. When the fighting began he was stationed on the troubled border with Sapin but had transferred to the Ustio front just as the war turned against their enemy. He had missed some of the heaviest early fighting but it made no difference to him here and now where people would be trying to shoot back at him. This was it. The culmination of all his training. No, it was more than that. This was his destiny. He was fighting to reclaim land that was rightfully Belka's, at least in his mind, and therefore should be part of the Belkan homeland. He was making history. Suddenly it all became bigger than just a single mission.

Two thousand feet passed and his trigger finger was beginning to itch. Nineteen hundred feet. Eighteen hundred feet. It felt like his heart was about to explode in his chest. Seventeen hundred. Sixteen hundred. This was it. Fifteen hundred. He squeezed the trigger.

The rockets raced out of the conical front of the pods hanging under the wings. Each one was three inches in diameter and left long grey smoke trails as they burned their short fuel load running away from the aircraft. The hurtling rockets drew long lines in the sky ahead of the MIG-29 as they headed for their targets. After three seconds the last rocket was fired and Gorndyke pulled up and away, vapour surging across the aircraft as it punched through the sound barrier. Hessen had already expended his rockets and was climbing ahead of him.

The first of Hessen's rockets impacted against the M60 causing little damage but severing the tanks tracks thus bringing it to a halt. The others landed across the first half of the convoy. Gorndyke's rockets landed barely a second later and finished the job. The result was chaos and horror. The trucks were overfilled with weary troops and were now burning with dead Ustio soldiers fuelling the flames. Some who were still alive rolled out of the trucks, some missing body parts, only to get run over by the following vehicle trying to escape the carnage.

With the tank stopped however the following vehicles, most of whose driver's were themselves dead or severely injured, began crashing into the back of it before being sandwiched by the vehicle behind that. From those who survived the initial attack their piercing screams seem to drowned out the crackle of the flames. It was brutal but from five thousand feet Gorndyke looked down at the carnage with a sense of satisfaction. He had come through his first attack mission unscathed and only one thought now lingered on his mind.

"Victory!"

What he and his fellow Belkan pilots were unaware of however was at that point in time two planes were taking off from an Ustio base in the far south of the country. They were a pair of F-15s one of which had blue streaks painted on its wings. The other just had one wing painted in blood red. With the arrival of these two planes and others like it the 'good times' the Belkans were enjoying was about to come to crashing halt.


End file.
